We have formulated a statement on ethical practice and principles of care, inspired by the practice of the Walk Create project.  The aim of this statement  is to make public our ethical values and intentions which drive the TOGETHER project. The  statement outlines our intentions, philosophical foundations, ethical principles and safeguarding practices guiding the project.

This project works within two institutions; the university and the prison sites. As such it has undergone rigorous ethical interrogation within the two systems which require us to withhold standards regarding integrity, respect, consent and care. We will seek to extend these ethical obligations beyond the processes of the project to become an ongoing commitment to participatory relational development of ethical practice. This is particularly important in the context of the power dynamics of the hierarchical institutions that encase all members of the project and the TOGETHER prison classrooms.

Our TOGETHER prison-university education partnership project is committed to working in an ethically responsible way that centres care for our social environment and those we engage with. It is grounded in principles of social justice, recognising the humanity, dignity and value of all people and respecting diversity, equality and human rights. We aim to build authentic relationships amongst the research team, our research participants and and everyone else we encounter in the process, based on mutuality, trust and respect between university students, educators, and students in prison. 

The TOGETHER project is guided by an ethics of care, compassion and solidarity with people in prison. We seek to reduce stigma and harms associated with imprisonment. The project utilises participatory action research (PAR) methodology, centred around lived experiences, to collaboratively create knowledge and catalyse changes to oppressive systems and policies. Our goal is mutual liberation, for both educators and students, through education inside and outside prison walls. We aim to build connections and understanding across divides to humanise the criminal justice system and evolve society's responses to harm and wrongdoing. 

Our TOGETHER project is grounded in pedagogies of liberation, dialogue and hope. We aim to illuminate new possibilities through education and believe in every person's capacity for growth and transformation. The project seeks to build mutual understanding across divides, upholding everyone’s shared humanity in the face of stigma and oppression. We recognise the structural oppressions and intersectional marginalisation underpinning imprisonment. The TOGETHER project aims to platform perspectives historically excluded from discourse, policy and practice using a PAR methodology which recognises and values the knowledge produced by those with lived experience of criminal justice and injustice. Using critical participatory pedagogy will activate the classroom site as a location of peer produced knowledge and solutions for emancipatory change. The project seeks to foster critical consciousness of systems of oppression and facilitate reflections on our own complicity within them.

The TOGETHER project recognises both academic and prison institutions as sites of hierarchy, privilege and oppression and is committed to education and research that challenges institutional violence and the logic of imprisonment as a response to social issues. We continuously reflect on power dynamics to mitigate potential coercion and ensure voluntary informed consent. The TOGETHER classroom  is based upon principles of non-hierarchy, conviviality, and inclusion. Theory, pedagogy and methodology will be rooted in anti-oppressive practice that locates all group members within the harms of institutional power and strives to produce solidarity and symmetrical relationships. Findings will be produced and shared collaboratively to enhance prison-university prison partnerships and transform in-prison and university academic pedagogies.

We commit to building authentic relationships between educators, students and the research team grounded in trust, transparency, communication and collaboration. The project centres lived experiences of all actors as expertise, aiming to break down binaries in knowledge production. Prisons can be characterised by deficits in communication and transparency, and in lack of control over outcomes. We recognise the potential of the prison site to impact the project in ways that are beyond our control, but endeavour to be transparent and forthcoming with Think Tank members and students. This includes reflection on potential harms that could occur and provision of support: first to colleagues in the team impacted by the precarity of Higher Education and the Arts sector, and secondly to participants in the Think Tank and classroom. We will be clear and open about the timescale and expectations regarding education timetable, participation and assessment and commit to make sure students have all the information that they need to do their best. We will also be clear about the limits of what we have control over, including what happens after the project regarding the Think Tank, the research network and aims and aspirations of the project.

We ensure voluntary, non-coerced participation through providing clear information about the project’s aims, purpose, actors, methods and intended outcomes including who the results will be shared with and how findings will be used. Participants will understand they can leave the project at any time without repercussions regarding their relationships with the university and/or the prison. We commit to transparency about potential risks during the project as well as benefits, and will inform those collaborating in the prison-university classroom of their rights and methods of both complaint and exit from the project. Consent will be an ongoing and reflective process; we check in regularly with participants about their ongoing consent and experience of the project. We encourage open feedback and continuously reflect together on power, ethics and improvements.

We safeguard participants’ identities and maintain confidentiality regarding their information and project data. Equally, we recognise the labour of Think Tank members and contributions of classroom participants to the knowledge produced over the course of this project and will provide the opportunity for anonymity to be wavered and co-researchers to have their participation fully attributed and cited in outputs. This will only occur where there is fully informed consent to sharing identity and information beyond the project. We employ secure data storage and anonymisation in disseminating findings. Exceptions include disclosures indicating harm to self or others.

We commit to just processes and outcomes that foreground marginalised voices and create opportunity for inclusion, equality and diversity. We will provide a variety of sensory and creative interpretive tools to enable inclusion and participation of all members of the TOGETHER community. We continuously reflect on power dynamics within the project, including disparities between the research team, between inside and outside students, and between educators and students. We will use non-stigmatising and person centred inclusionary language and create a participatory, convivial space for knowledge production and symmetrical learning. This entails ensuring that the classroom is anti-oppressive in content, challenging the logics of punishment and prisons and enabling critical thinking on the social justice of criminal justice. 

We will collaborate with the TOGETHER  classroom and Think Tank community as partners in analysis and interpretation of the classroom, knowledge production for the TOGETHER toolkit,  and determining how knowledge will be shared. We will co-produce outputs participants find accessible and  impactful and have community participation in the dissemination of knowledge. We seek outcomes defined as meaningful by participants themselves, beyond merely extracting data. We will encourage different types of learning and pay attention to embodied practices of teaching and learning. We will provide the pathways for the knowledge created in the prison-university classroom to create emancipatory change via the Think Tank and project network and advocate for policy changes identified by project collaborators. We will utilise our university privilege to amplify marginalized voices and experiences to those in power; equally we recognise the potential of the prison-university classroom pedagogy to transform hierarchical practice in the academic setting.

We will foster a culture of care amongst the TOGETHER community, providing emotional support and space for processing any distress, including signposting to external support, implementing a distress protocol, and providing opportunities to debrief challenging experiences and feelings. We promote self-compassion, healthy boundaries and avoiding burnout.

We will communicate openly about project funding, partnerships, roles and limitations and welcome critical feedback on our praxis.  We will convene an advisory group involving project members, prison staff and external experts to advise on ethical issues arising and help safeguard the TOGETHER community’s wellbeing, alongside providing an additional layer of project accountability. We will create the space for continual reflection, feedback and critique of processes and implementation of the project, reflecting honestly on mistakes and knowledge deficits,  and aiming for accountability in putting project ethical principles into action.

We acknowledge that our project builds on the work done by colleagues in the Inside-Out Exchange Programme as well as Learning Together. Building on these legacies we take our project as a starting point for developing and fostering an Irish all island approach to prison-university education partnerships. We also acknowledge the foundations of emancipatory pedagogy in the participatory methodologies of indigenous communities and social movements of the Global South.